EUROPEAN leaders have shown themselves eager to join forces with United States imperialists in their push for regime change in Venezuela, issuing democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum giving him eight days to call an election.

France, Germany and Britain have sided with the US Trump regime, backing Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who issued a statement sayign: “We want democracy and free elections in Venezuela.

“I want to state absolutely clearly that if within eight days, fair, free and transparent elections are not called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido [the leader of Venezuela’s sidelined National Assembly and self-declared “interim president”] as president.”

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaze dismissed the demands at the UN security council meeting in New York on Saturday.

“Nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not,” he said.

Earlier Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt regurgitated unsubstantiated claims of electoral irregularities in last May’s presidential election.

One of the allegations made by Mr Hunt — that ballot boxes were stuffed — was scotched by Sinn Fein MP for South Down Chris Hazzard as “complete rubbish.”

Mr Hazzard, who was in the country during the election as part of an international observation team, explained how he met people who were freely and openly campaigning against Mr Maduro.

“It’s also not possible to ‘stuff ballot boxes’ as ballots are electronically twinned with voter ID and fingerprints,” he said.

On Saturday the Bank of England blocked Mr Maduro from withdrawing $1.2 billion (£0.91bn) worth of gold after pressure from US officials who are seeking to divert Venezuela’s overseas foreign currency to Mr Guaido to boost his bid for the presidency.

The sum represents a large part of Venezuela’s $8bn of foreign reserves.

Sources claimed that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton lobbied the British government — which came out in support of Mr Guaido’s illegitimate claim to the presidency last week — to cut off Venezuela’s gold supply as they try to strangle the country’s economy to foment regime change.

A US Treasury statement confirmed it “will use its economic and diplomatic tools to ensure that commercial transactions by the Venezuelan government, including those involving its state-owned enterprises and international reserves, are consistent with” its recognition of Mr Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela.